Having appeased the prince and completed both cushions, Yao Huang planned to go out for a stroll on the tenth day of the month. Unexpectedly, when she woke that morning, her monthly courses had arrived.

Yao Huang first felt annoyed that going out today would be inconvenient, then recalled her mother’s teachings—that women who became pregnant would cease menstruating, while the arrival of monthly courses proved one had not conceived.

Yao Huang was quite pleased. Firstly, she hadn’t had enough of being a young maiden and didn’t want to become a mother to a child so early. Secondly, she had been married to Prince Hui for less than a month, relying entirely on nighttime intimacy to deepen their bond. If she conceived this quickly, and Prince Hui was so voraciously insatiable, what if he became so pent-up that he sought out chamber maids for himself?

Regarding Prince Hui wanting chamber maids or eventually taking secondary consorts, Yao Huang had absolutely no recourse. If an ordinary man married her and still dared harbor such flowery thoughts, Yao Huang would dare break his legs. But stuck with a prince as such an exalted husband in an imperially decreed marriage, Yao Huang could neither divorce nor obstruct him. If she dared obstruct, she herself would be the one punished.

Yao Huang only hoped the time when she was the sole woman by the prince’s side could last longer—long enough that even if Emperor Yongchang eventually bestowed upon the prince a secondary consort beauty of higher birth and fuller figure than herself, the prince would still remember their long affection and treat her best, sending the lion’s share of any gold, silver, or treasures to her rooms!

Of course, secondary consorts and such were matters for much later. This year the imperial family still had two grand weddings to conduct. Prince Qing’s two secondary consorts’ entry into the household was already scheduled for next autumn. Emperor Yongchang wouldn’t assign consecutive tasks to the Ministry of Rites, so Yao Huang had at least a year and a half to properly cultivate feelings with Prince Hui.

Casting aside distant worries, Yao Huang first considered the immediate concern of disappointing Prince Hui tonight.

Thinking it over, Yao Huang decided to inform Prince Hui of this matter in advance, rather than have him arrive in high spirits only to spend the night unable to satisfy his desires and merely sleeping.

To this end, Yao Huang wrote a letter, specially adding an envelope and sealing it with red clay, having A’Ji deliver it to the bamboo courtyard.

This letter was quickly delivered into Prince Hui’s hands.

“My prince, most unfortunately, my monthly courses arrived this morning. According to past patterns, they should continue completely until the sixteenth of this month, so on both the tenth and fifteenth nights, I won’t be able to properly attend to the prince.”

“If the prince can endure it, please come to Mingan Hall on the seventeenth evening. I will certainly compensate the prince well. If the prince cannot bear it, coming tonight and on the fifteenth as usual is also fine—I have other methods of attending to the prince.”

Zhao Sui read extensively, including medical texts, and thus knew what monthly courses were.

Reading the first paragraph of the princess consort’s letter, Zhao Sui actually felt calm, harboring no disappointment or resentment toward the princess consort. But after reading her cautious second paragraph, Prince Hui had no choice but to look toward the Buddhist sutras nearby to collect himself.

Had those few nights truly been too demanding, making her think he couldn’t endure even a few nights?

Zhao Sui burned this “secret letter” that, if leaked, would reduce both husband and wife to laughingstocks of the imperial family.

Yao Huang didn’t receive a reply from the prince, but Nanny Liu arrived.

Feeling weak, Yao Huang reclined on the daybed in the side room reading storybooks, with a fluffy soft cushion tucked behind her waist. The first day of her monthly courses was always when Yao Huang was at her most sedate.

Before coming, Nanny Liu didn’t know what had happened to the princess consort. Fei Quan only said the prince asked her to check on the princess consort. Upon entering the side room and glimpsing the princess consort’s somewhat pale complexion and the silk-covered square cushion specially placed beneath her, Nanny Liu immediately understood.

“Does the princess consort feel unwell anywhere?” Nanny Liu pressed down on the princess consort’s shoulder as she prepared to sit up properly, asking with loving concern, “Is your lower back sore? Does your stomach hurt?”

The person cherished by the prince naturally received Nanny Liu’s affection by extension. Moreover, the princess consort before her possessed peony-like beauty and an endearing disposition.

Yao Huang’s face flushed red: “How did you know?”

Nanny Liu smiled: “The princess consort didn’t want to trouble this old servant, but the prince worried the princess consort was too young to care for herself properly, so he specially sent this old servant to check.”

Yao Huang awkwardly used her storybook to cover her face: “How could he tell you everything!”

Nanny Liu: “Because the prince is a man who has never had a woman near him requiring his care. The less experience he has, the more he treats this as a major matter.”

This was the unique pleasure of young newlywed couples. In a few more years, even if the prince cared about the princess consort during her monthly courses, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to send her to visit again.

Yao Huang was the one in the situation and only felt embarrassed. She was a seventeen-year-old young woman—such a small matter still required special elder care?

“Don’t worry, Nanny. My body is fine. I’m just a bit weak and achy on the first day. It doesn’t hurt.”

Even so, Nanny Liu still summoned the four senior maids including A’Ji and carefully instructed them.

Halfway through the morning, Yao Huang was fed a bowl of red date and dried longan soup. At the lunch table appeared a tureen of exceptionally fragrant black-bone chicken soup. By evening, Prince Hui actually came, and Yao Huang had no choice but to drink another bowl of delicious crucian carp and tofu soup in his presence.

With the prince’s mansion’s diet like this, Yao Huang greatly feared she would grow into a truly plump princess consort.

“The prince should drink a bowl too. This soup is delicious.” Yao Huang wickedly urged—if they were going to get fat, both should get fat together.

Zhao Sui drank it, even eating clean the two pieces of tender tofu inside.

As night fell, Zhao Sui was once again pushed to the canopy bed’s edge, noticing the thin red silk cushion added on her side.

Sitting on the bed and watching the princess consort standing attendance nearby, Zhao Sui said in a calm tone: “Extinguish the lamps. Let’s sleep early.”

Yao Huang had already experienced once Prince Hui’s saying one thing while meaning another, so this time she couldn’t determine whether he truly wanted to simply sleep, or whether he was looking forward to her other methods of service.

Regardless, the lamps had to be extinguished.

Fumbling her way onto the bed in darkness, before Yao Huang could figure out how to test him, Prince Hui asked first: “Are you experiencing any discomfort?”

Yao Huang answered honestly: “Tomorrow I’ll be able to run and jump.”

Zhao Sui: “…Going horseback riding?”

Yao Huang: “…I was just making a comparison. I’ll rest another day tomorrow and go out for a stroll the day after.”

Zhao Sui: “Mm.”

Yao Huang tried moving toward him. If the prince played the half-willing, half-reluctant game, it would indicate he came for exactly this purpose.

Before Yao Huang could reach Prince Hui, the prince who sensed her intention turned first, grasping her shoulder and turning her toward the inner side: “It was agreed to come every fifth and tenth day. Regardless of whether it’s convenient for you, it should be so. When it’s inconvenient, we can just talk and sleep.”

He was indeed curious about her methods, but Zhao Sui truly didn’t need the princess consort to exert herself serving him when she felt unwell.

Feeling the unyielding strength of those hands on her shoulders, Yao Huang felt very ashamed. She had again acted like a petty person misjudging a gentleman’s heart.

After shame came emotion. Yao Huang grasped the hands on her shoulders, saying with genuine sincerity: “The prince treats me so well.”

Zhao Sui stayed close to her for a while, then withdrew in time.

On the fifteenth evening, though Yao Huang’s monthly courses hadn’t yet ended, she felt much lighter. Thinking that this was Prince Hui’s first time abstaining for so long after marriage, Yao Huang softly lay against his chest, asking shyly: “The day after tomorrow will be fine. Will the prince come?”

Zhao Sui gazed at the blurred bed canopy: “Let’s make it the twentieth instead. Rest a few more days.”

Yao Huang thought he didn’t understand and was being foolish again. She laughed: “When this ends, it ends. There’s no concept of needing rest.”

Zhao Sui: “…The set days shouldn’t have exceptions.”

Yao Huang pressed her lips together. If this man came every single day, Yao Huang would certainly complain. But she had already invited him, yet he kept demurring—this made Yao Huang a bit unhappy. Poking his chest, she murmured: “The prince has broken the pattern before.”

Zhao Sui: “Before there were reasons.”

Yao Huang remembered. The first exception was because she got her clothes wet fishing. The second was because he delayed too late painting her portrait. The third was because she delivered cushions too diligently, and the prince insisted on “rewarding” her with dignity.

“If you won’t come, then don’t come. I only said that because I was afraid of wronging the prince. It’s not like I was looking forward to such things.”

Abandoning the rule-adhering prince, Yao Huang went to sleep on her own.

In a blink it was the seventeenth evening. Prince Hui truly didn’t come to Mingan Hall.

Yao Huang couldn’t help overthinking wildly. The prince so insisted on the every-fifth-and-tenth rule—could it be his physical condition didn’t allow it, requiring restraint in this area? Or had the prince read too many Buddhist sutras and voluntarily adopted asceticism, only choosing six days each month to be an ordinary mortal?

Common folk rarely did such things, but Yao Huang had heard of many emperors’ mad obsessions with seeking immortality and the Dao—immortality elixirs that supposedly granted immortality after sufficient consumption. Yao Huang could tell immediately these were charlatan frauds, yet those emperors truly believed! One case after another of early death from consuming elixirs still couldn’t prevent subsequent emperors from being deceived by new “masters.”

Prince Hui wasn’t an emperor but was still imperial family. Perhaps imperial family members just emphasized Buddhism and Daoism?

Just as Yao Huang began worrying whether her prince might suddenly see through worldly attachments and abandon her to become a monk, the twentieth evening arrived as scheduled. After abstaining for over ten consecutive nights, Prince Hui remained the taciturn person Yao Huang knew. Though he didn’t love talking, he was extremely energetic. Each time, it seemed Yao Huang had barely fallen asleep before this man roused her again.

After a basketful of soft words, Yao Huang’s temper also flared. Crying and sobbing, she scolded him: “Why don’t you go become a monk already!”

She’d rather the prince take monastic vows, rather have Emperor Yongchang reduce her rank and rewards as the nominal princess consort because his son became a monk, than continue being his princess consort. He simply wasn’t human!

Zhao Sui had heard the princess consort’s disrespectful words before—cursing him as a promise-breaking liar, bastard prince, and such. “Monk” was a first.

“Why become a monk?” Zhao Sui asked.

Once he became distracted, Yao Huang caught her breath. The rationality cast to the ninth heaven returned somewhat. She tightly shut her eyes, pretending she hadn’t said those words.

As Prince Hui continued, Yao Huang went mad again: “I want to take vows! I want to take vows!”

After the night passed, Yao Huang felt being a princess consort had more advantages after all. She couldn’t bear to take vows. At worst, next time her monthly courses came, she’d be more proactive, not giving Prince Hui too long an opportunity to abstain. After all, most nights the prince was fairly normal.

On the twenty-ninth day, the mansion distributed monthly allowances early. Each of the four senior maids including A’Ji received one tael of silver. Yao Huang received fifty taels.

With silver in hand, Yao Huang took A’Ji out again.

Walking out of a jewelry shop, A’Ji suddenly pulled the princess consort, indicating she should look to the right front.

Yao Huang casually glanced over. On this ordinary street with pedestrians coming and going, she saw the one thing worthy of A’Ji’s curiosity—a wheelchair.

It was an old wheelchair even more ordinary than the elmwood wheelchair she’d bought and brought back. The man sitting in it was in his thirties, wearing a set of half-worn cloth clothes. The man looked quite ordinary, his wheat-colored sun-darkened face ruddy with health. He casually watched the passersby beside him while smiling and chatting with the cloth-clothed woman pushing the wheelchair behind him.

The woman was in her early thirties, probably his wife.

Both husband and wife were too ordinary—ordinary in dress and ordinary in expression. So even with the added wheelchair, they didn’t attract excessive attention. Some passersby would glance at the wheelchair, then move on after looking. The man in the wheelchair was accustomed to this, continuing to chat and stroll in his wife’s company.

Yao Huang thought that if she didn’t have a prince husband at home who also sat in a wheelchair, she and A’Ji wouldn’t have stared at this man for so long either.